Pie
by SleeplessDays
Summary: A short story of how Scarlett could have reacted to Rhett's goading her into selling the mills. After all, he was one to talk about having a finger in someone else's pie.


**Very dialogue centric. This takes place after Scarlett's accident as Rhett tries to get her to give up her mills. It will probably go after and be happier than my other works.**

**This was my stress/procrastination writing. The difficulty of my summer chem course rivals that of my vengeful teacher from last semester. It's 4am. Wish me luck.**

"I knew you wouldn't part with the mills. I told him that he knew as well as I did that you couldn't bear not to have your finger in everybody's pie, and if you sold out to him, then you wouldn't be able to tell him how to mind his own business."

"They're my mills and therefore my business. Or pie, as you seem to prefer. I'm not telling him how to mind his business, I'm making sure he doesn't mess up mine. You like to keep an eye on your investments, even if it's a rather lackluster eye, so you can't expect me to let them fail. And you are one to talk about having your finger in someone else's pie. My adulthood has your whole hand smeared through it."

"I'm not surprised you see it that way. You've never understood very much."

"No, well I've never had anyone to help or guide me through it, now have I?

"It's always been Scarlett on her own. Strong, capable Scarlett who we can force to carry all our dead weight. Scarlett can carry three children and a sick woman home alone through the countryside and between two armies. Scarlett can pick the cotton. Scarlett can give up all her food for others. She can stay up late to keep working and then awake at dawn. Scarlett can murder a man for our benefit. She can keep us from getting bought out. Why not let her provide the entirety of our income? She can manage the children and make all the money. I mean, while she's at it, why don't we just ostracize her for her new husband? Then she won't have any friends and can watch the children when her husband up and abandons her, though we know she'd do it anyway. Oh, Scarlett's been in a terrible accident and lost her precious baby? I'm sure she doesn't even feel it, let's refuse her any sort of emotional or physical support and expect her to carry on as normal. And for the finishing touch, let's bully her into something she doesn't want to do.

"I'm sick of it all. I just want to be left alone to recover from my accident and you go and harass me. Why can't you just let me be?"

Rhett slammed his glass into the table.

"Because I can't sit back and watch you reject everything I've done." His temper had reached a tipping point and it burned so brightly that he lost his famous control. "I provide you with money and you still insist on owning and working at your mills. You think work will help your recovery? And what do I tell Bonnie when her mother dies from working herself to death?"

"It's always Bonnie with you," she screamed, her anger rising to meet his. "It's never concern for me. It's never even worry for Wade and Ella. Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie. You don't care if my children are crushed by society, only that you're _precious_ little girl might be sniffed at. You spoil her beyond belief. You think it's cute now, just wait until she's older. No one will be able to control her and she'll ruin herself. Especially once Daddy's no longer around to grovel with the matrons. Meanwhile I'll be cast out on the street and my other children will be neglected in your quest to keep my _tainted _self away from _our_ daughter."

"You shut your mouth, you conniving little bitch. I love Wade and Ella more than you ever have and ever will. You don't know the first thing about my motives."

"No? I know that you're hell bent on making my life a living hell. And I love my children. Just because I'm not Melanie Wilkes doesn't mean I haven't slaved away and starved for them. I almost prostituted myself to keep a roof over Wade's head, but you like to forget that little piece of information."

"That's because everything you do is for Ashley or yourself. You've never done a thing for your children."

"I've worked every day since Atlanta burned to keep them alive. I've gone weeks without any real food because Wade and Melly always needed it more. You think I do it all for my love of Ashley? Then why would I feed the wife supposedly standing between us? You're absolutely ridiculous."

"Your reasoning tends to be convoluted, I've accepted that."

"No, that's just how you wrap up everything about me because you don't like to think that I've got a brain — one that you can't understand."

"I've hardly understood you because you've barely let me in."

"Why would I confide in you? So I could get all my vulnerabilities thrown back in my face? So I can get laughed at?" Scarlett let out a harsh bark of laughter and narrowed her eyes further. "I was right to be suspicious when you proposed. Of course it ended up like this. You turned our marriage into a battlefield and left me stranded in it."

"I've turned our marriage into a battlefield," he repeated incredulously. "Ludicrous. It's your fault we can't talk anymore. So insistent on pining after Ashley. You would have used anything I revealed for your benefit, just like everything else."

"Are you serious? I make it hard to open up? You make it impossible. I can count the times you've treated me kindly without throwing a mistake back in my face on a single hand."

"What, so it was all a mistake?" His voice was clearly mocking, but he was still shouting and far from the polite stranger he had been just before their argument.

"Maybe it was. I think I can safely say that our marriage was the worst and most painful mistake I've made yet."

Suffocating silence fell between them as their shouts abruptly cut off.

"Fine. Should we file the papers then?" He was back to that infuriatingly cool mask.

"Which papers?"

"The divorce papers, of course."

"Are you a fool? No."

"I see. I guess we're stuck here. Well you can go back to longing for Ashley, I'll stay out of your way. I don't like you keeping the mills, though."

It was all Ashley and business with Rhett. Whatever would be best for his daughter was what he did. Bonus points if he could throw in jabs about Ashley and cut her childhood ties.

"Can you stop obsessing over Ashley for five minutes? God's nightgown, I'm getting a headache from it."

"You want _me_ to stop obsessing over Ashley Wilkes? Now that's rich."

"Is it? I've never heard anyone speak of him more than you do."

"I've never seen anyone think about him as frequently as you. Excluding his wife, of course."

"I'm not the one lying awake and thinking of him. You're always going on about him and why he's imperfect. I think about him less than you talk about him."

"I find that hard to believe, considering how frequently you thought of him when we lay together."

"What the devil are you talking about? Why would I be thinking about Ashley at night?"

"Don't play dumb, it doesn't suit you. I know you'd rather it was him touching you."

"You should try not being dumb. Why would I want him… touching me?"

"Wasn't it you who spent hours talking about his many virtues?"

"Wasn't it you who spent four times that amount insulting him. Why? Do _you _wish he was the one in bed with you?"

"Of course not, I could think of nothing less appealing."

"Other than touching your wife."

Rhett stalked towards her, an odd glint in his eye.

He reached her and immediately pressed her body against his. One of his tanned hands feathered over her cheek, barely more than a ghost of a touch.

She couldn't break her eyes away from his deep, swirling depths. There was something hypnotic about his intense gaze that made her knees weak and her stomach lurch.

He was close enough to kiss and the smell that had always been pure Rhett enveloped her. He looked so rakish, towering over her. Some of his hair had broken free from the pomade and was falling into his eyes.

One arm was wrapped firmly around her waist and the other cane to hold her chin, seemingly to keep her emerald eyes locked on his black ones.

"Do you want me to?" His voice had lowered and the way he was looking at her left her breathless.

"I…"

What could she say to that? It was beneath a lady to admit such a thing, but…

"Just say the word, darling, and I'll comply."

"Rhett…" His name escaped her mouth in a shaky breath. Her obvious desire encouraged him immensely.

The internal war her mind was waging on itself was clear in her expression. The lifetime of sexual repression and shame couldn't be undone in a single night… but he was willing to be patient with her now that Ashley had been removed from his throne. Maybe it wasn't too late.


End file.
